In Chap­ter Four of *If These Wings Could Fly*, the pro­tag­o­nist, Leighton, finds her­self in the unfa­mil­iar ter­ri­to­ry of the junior hall­way after a mix-up with her lock­er assign­ment. The nar­ra­tive opens with her pon­der­ing the absence of the senior priv­i­leges she longed for, par­tic­u­lar­ly access to the Senior Wall— a social hub for seniors to con­nect and express them­selves. This long­ing trig­gers mem­o­ries of the many things she has missed, often due to her dif­fi­cult home life, where she had to pri­or­i­tize sta­bil­i­ty over typ­i­cal high school expe­ri­ences.

As she opens her half-size lock­er, she is star­tled by Liam McNa­ma­ra, a fel­low senior known for his charm and sta­tus as stu­dent coun­cil vice pres­i­dent and a foot­ball play­er. He mis­tak­en­ly con­fus­es her for anoth­er stu­dent, Lyla, whom he describes as his cheer­leader part­ner. Their ensu­ing con­ver­sa­tion reveals Liam’s awk­ward­ness and Leighton’s sharp wit, high­light­ing their con­trast­ing social cir­cles. While he attempts to explain away his inap­pro­pri­ate approach as a mis­un­der­stand­ing, she strug­gles inter­nal­ly with the resid­ual trau­ma of her home life, which com­pli­cates her inter­ac­tions with peers.

Their ban­ter flows nat­u­ral­ly, touch­ing on top­ics like the unglam­orous nature of foot­ball in their town and their shared class, Advanced Place­ment Eng­lish. Liam’s can­did views on lit­er­a­ture pro­vide a refresh­ing per­spec­tive for Leighton as they bond over shared class­room expe­ri­ences. How­ev­er, as the con­ver­sa­tion pro­gress­es, Leighton’s thoughts veer back to her tumul­tuous home envi­ron­ment, and she starts to with­draw emo­tion­al­ly. She becomes acute­ly aware of the emo­tion­al tur­moil she’s car­ry­ing and abrupt­ly asks for her book back, real­iz­ing too late that the fun of the inter­ac­tion has turned heavy with her inner con­flicts.

Feel­ing an over­whelm­ing urge to escape, Leighton hasti­ly leaves the scene, cap­ti­vat­ed by a wave of anx­i­ety that threat­ens to engulf her. This chap­ter unique­ly encap­su­lates her strug­gle to main­tain a sem­blance of nor­mal­cy while nav­i­gat­ing friend­ships and the com­plex­i­ties born from her trou­bled back­ground. The rep­e­ti­tion of the word “nor­mal” at the chap­ter’s end empha­sizes her inter­nal bat­tle against her emo­tion­al scars.